


Old Houses Are Just Like That Sometimes

by Innytoes



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Ghost Hunters, House Flipping, Light Angst, Multi, Opinionated Ghost Sophie Devereaux, and by that I mean we all know what happens to Sam right, gratuitous violence to the spirit box, written for OT3Tropetober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26770390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innytoes/pseuds/Innytoes
Summary: Just because she's a ghost, doesn't mean Sophie Devereaux doesn't have opinions. Luckily, she likes Parker, the young woman renovating her house, and Eliot, the gardener of her estate. She even likes Hardison, the ghost hunter who is determined to prove the house is haunted.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, Parker/Eliot Spencer (Leverage)
Comments: 62
Kudos: 174





	Old Houses Are Just Like That Sometimes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leiascully](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/gifts), [coffeesuperhero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/gifts).



> Written for [OT3Tropetober](https://ot3tropetober.tumblr.com/).

It’s not that Sophie is an _evil_ spirit. It’s just that she spent a lot of time and effort grifting herself into owning this house, and she’s not about to let her untimely death stop her from enjoying it. So she stays. And maybe she chases away some people. She certainly has a grand old time haunting the wretched old woman who murdered her to get the house back into her family’s possession. And then her son, as well. (What a whimp, his mother lasted years, he gave up and moved out of the state after just three months.)

The house had been empty for a while after that. She’d gotten to enjoy it, even though it was hard to rearrange things how she liked, or to change the records on the record player. She’d adopted a stray cat for a few years, a tiny black thing who seemed to be able to see her. She wandered the garden at night, especially when the moon was full and the air was foggy. She could swear that sometimes, people passing by could see her, if their startled faces were anything to go by.

She couldn’t cross outside the garden walls. So she watched the world change. She watched children grow up, from tiny things in prams who stared at her in wonder, to young ruffians who dared each other to climb over the garden wall and touch the door of the house (always fun to give those a good scare), to courting couples walking hand in hand, young love. By that time they were rarely able to see her, but she couldn’t help but call out to some of them sometimes, anyway. (“He was walking by with Mary Southerby like that just last week, you’re too good for him, dear!”)

As the house started to fall in disrepair, she began to worry. So when The Family came back, she left them alone. She rolled her eyes at the young man who laughed and told his lovely wife that his grandfather must have been a little paranoid, this place was fine. They just needed to check the wiring, fix the roof, and this house would be an amazing home to raise a family in.

She was fond the young man, and his wife. They appreciated art and architecture. They said the ‘old details’ gave the house character. She informed them had been quite innovative back when she was their age. They were going to get the place sorted, without ruining the aesthetic or getting rid of all of her lovely treasures. They even hired a gardener to help with the large garden.

She liked Eliot. He didn’t over-prune her roses.

When the man and his wife had a son, she was delighted. She wasn’t even cross that the renovations had slowed down in favour of putting together a crib and painting a nursery. Every now and then, when the couple looked very tired, she’d spend an evening sitting next to the crib, telling Sam stories so he wouldn’t cry. He wasn’t partial to Shakespeare, but he seemed to like the ones about her grifts.

It was a tragedy when he got sick. By then, he couldn’t really see her anymore, but she visited his dreams sometimes, trying to soothe his pain. She did her best to tidy up when she thought the couple were too tired to notice. She was startled by the medical bill she found on the table. Surely inflation couldn’t have become that bad since she died?

She spent a lot of time in the garden after Sam passed. After that one horrible night when the man had sat in the boy’s bedroom, too tired to cry. She’d wanted to comfort him, but when she got close, he had lifted his head and had asked in such a broken, hopeful voice: ‘Sam?’

She couldn’t give him that false hope, so she stayed in the garden. She talked to Eliot sometimes while he worked, but he never heard her. Or at least, she thought so. One time, he’d stayed late, battling some particularly tenacious bamboo from the neighbours’ garden that was encroaching on her hydrangeas. After the sun set, she had called ‘come on, you’re almost there, put your back into it!’. He’d stiffened, halfway through putting his weight on the shovel trying to cut through the roots, and looked over his shoulder (the wrong side, she might add).

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” he had muttered after moment, shaking his head and clenching his jaw.

“If you say so, darling,” she’d replied. The moon was full. A fog was rolling in.

A muscle in his jaw jumped, but he bent down and resumed his work stubbornly. Sophie watched him work, before deciding that saving the hydrangeas was more important than trying to communicate with someone who was obviously too stubborn to believe. Plus, she didn’t want to scare him away. He used organic pesticides!

It was such a shame to see the man and his wife break up. The woman stayed in the house for a while longer, but after a few months, a For Sale sign sprang up in the front garden. All the modern furniture the couple had brought in disappeared, except for the things in the nursery. She played her records again, trying not to think of how empty the house felt without them. The gardener still came every few weeks. She joined him while he worked. If he felt her, he ignored her. He never stayed after dark when the moon was full.

She wandered the house, toying with the lights sometimes out of boredom. She scared away a bunch of teenagers armed with crowbars and spray paint. Between burning them with a fire-y hot door handle, all the doors in the house slamming open and shut, and the banshee cries as they turned and fled, she was quite pleased with herself. She did have to direct Eliot to where they had trampled her tulips trying to run away, though. He frowned and made sure to put an extra padlock on the gate.

-

The house was eventually sold to a young blonde woman. When she showed up with a crowbar of her own and a golden hardhat, Sophie was a little concerned. She hovered behind the girl, reading off her clipboard as she went from room to room.

“Replace dining room chandelier?” she gasped. “That is original to the house!” The chandelier in question quivered in her rage, elegant strands making delicate clinking sounds.

The girl looked at the chandelier before scribbling on her clipboard: CHECK CEILING 4 RACCNS

She had her work cut out for her.

Over the next week, she followed the girl – Parker – around, making her displeasure known at some of her choices. She glared at one of the paint swatches on the wall until it cracked and blistered. She flickered the lights violently when she saw Parker eyeing the built-in shelves of the library, fingering her crowbar. (Thankfully, that distracted her.) She flung open all the cabinet drawers when the girl clicked ‘add to cart’ on the most hideous looking wallpaper she had ever seen.

One time, she slammed a door loudly when the girl tried to pry off the board and batten siding in the formal dining room. The way Parker flinched and ducked down, covering her ears, Sophie instantly regretted it. As an apology, she greatly loosened the next piece, muttering to herself that Parker better have a plan on how to make it beautiful again.

She ranted at Eliot when he stopped by to work on the garden, about Parker’s terrible taste in colour, how it was all much too modern, how she seemed to want to demo things just so she could use the large hammer. “Eliot, you’re not _listening_ ,” she huffed, as the man leaned on his hoe and stared through the window at the woman gleefully chipping away all the lovely and only somewhat cracked floral tile backsplash in the kitchen. She rolled her eyes. As if he ever listened. Besides, she knew young love when she saw it.

She watched the two gravitate towards each other. Eliot offered to help carry some heavy supplies. Parker started eating lunch on the steps of the back porch. She knew there was something there when Parker actually let Eliot touch the large mallet she used for knocking down walls. It was one of the few big renovations Sophie hadn’t been upset about. She liked the airy feel it gave the kitchen, and she liked the way Parker looked at Eliot when he smashed the hammer through the wall in one clean go.

Those two were so wrapped up in each other, carefully feeling each other out (“Just kiss already!” she’d shouted multiple times, lights flickering) that they hadn’t noticed the young man lurking in front of the house. At first, Sophie figured he was just interested in the renovations. But when he showed up again, and again, and then in the evening with some kind of camera, she knew something had to be done. She had seen enough late night TV (Nate passed out on the sofa with a bottle she carefully kept from spilling on the couch) to know what a stalker was.

“Parker,” she said, tapping the glass of the bedroom window to get her attention. Poor girl hadn’t even installed curtains yet. “There’s a man with a camera outside.” She flicked the lights off so he wouldn’t be able to see her and tapped the window again. Thankfully, Parker went to the window and saw what she meant. As she went downstairs, Sophie knocked over her crowbar from where it was leaning against the staircase. Parker picked it up thoughtfully and went outside to confront the man.

Sophie dithered in the house. It wasn’t like she could do anything to help Parker, she was standing outside the garden wall. But perhaps she could call Eliot if there was trouble. She was pretty sure she’d be able to manipulate the little rectangle that functioned as a phone these days. She moved the phone to the box that functioned as an end-table next to the door and stepped out to the front porch to keep her eye on Parker and the man.

“Haunted?” Parker was saying. “No, old houses are just like that sometimes.”

“So you’ve never had anything unexplained happen?” The young man asked. He’d put away the camera. Parker had not put away the crowbar. “Weird noises, doors opening and closing without there being a breeze?”

“Old houses are just like that sometimes,” Parker repeated, looking up at her bedroom window with a thoughtful expression.

“Look, can I just please, please do a walkthrough of your house some time? Not right now! It’s dark, I’m a random guy with a camera, I get it. I can stop by next week and bring the articles I mentioned, you can check out my channel in the meantime and see that it’s legit, I just, please, it would mean so much for my Youtube channel.”

“Fine,” Parker decided. “Come by next Friday. No more pointing your camera at other people’s houses without permission.” She shook the crowbar at him menacingly.

“I promise,” the young man said, hand over his heart earnestly. He tipped his hat to Parker in a charming gentlemanly gesture. It was slightly undermined by the happy little dance he did when Parker closed the door of the house, though. Sophie drifted back inside to find her staring at the phone, which she had not left on that box.

“If there’s a ghost in here, I’m painting the feature wall in the living room green,” Parker called out, quite loudly. She didn’t need to yell, Sophie was right there. Still, she was trying, which was sweet.

“That was my favourite option,” Sophie agreed.

“And I won’t tear out the built-ins in the study if you let me paint them white,” Parker continued. Sophie decided that would be alright. “But the chandelier has to go.”

Frowning, Sophie pushed the phone off the box. To her credit, Parker only jumped a little.

“No, it’s dusty and old and it has to go,” she held firm. “I’ll donate it to somewhere nice where they’ll appreciate it, alright?” At the temperature drop in the room, she frowned. “Don’t make me change my mind about the built-ins!” she threatened, waving her crowbar in front of her.

Sophie fumed. “You better pick a nice shade of white, or I’m knocking over the paint cans,” she sulked.

-

Eliot came over the next day. He wasn’t even working on the garden that day, and his excuse of ‘I just happened to be in the neighbourhood’ didn’t hold up to the two carefully packed sandwiches and the thermos of coffee he had with him. It was frankly adorable. They sat side-by-side on the back porch stairs, shoulders pressed together (even though there was plenty of space) and had lunch together while Parker told Eliot about the man with the camera.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Eliot insisted.

“Keep telling yourself that, dear,” Sophie said.

“I told him old houses were just like that sometimes, but he seemed pretty insistent,” Parker said. “He’s going to come over next Friday to check out the house.”

“I think I have some weeding to do here next Friday,” Eliot muttered, completely unconvincingly. Parker rolled her eyes at knocked their shoulders together.

“He’s harmless,” she said. “Besides, I have my crowbar.” At Eliot’s dejected look, she added: “But, if you bring more sandwiches, you can come over, too.”

-

The week went by quickly. Parker started talking to her more. First only about the renovations (Sophie was unconvinced that whatever ‘subway tile’ was, it would freshen up her kitchen), then about her life, and Eliot. It seemed like she hadn’t had many people to talk to before she moved in here. Sophie had never seen her calling any friends or family, and nobody except the gardener ever came over to the house.

“I think he likes me,” she said one evening, stabbing her brush into the paint can. “I think I’m gonna ask him out.”

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Sophie replied. She focussed, and the desk lamp propped in the corner of the room turned on. Parker beamed.

“I’m going to ask him bungee jumping,” she said. When there was no response, she clarified. “It’s when you jump off something high with a big elastic tied to your feet and then you go BOING.” She waved her hand around, and Sophie flailed to make sure the paint didn’t splatter anything valuable. Parker had only just finished sanding and re-staining the floors in this room. When the light in the corner turned off again, Parker cackled.

“You’re funny, Ghost,” she said, and resumed painting the baseboard.

-

On Friday, the young man showed up at the house in the afternoon, with a bag full of equipment. He shook Parker’s hand excitedly, babbling on about the history of the house for a while and showing her printouts of old newspaper articles. He was remarkably well-informed, though sadly, her murder was on record as being ‘unsolved’.

“Personally I think it was the son of the old man who gave her the house,” he said, in a hushed voice.

“It wasn’t,” Sophie corrected him. “It was his wife. She was convinced I was sleeping with him! Which I _wasn’t_. Besides, she hadn’t even noticed he’d given it away until after he died and-”

“So what are you going to do?” Parker asked, rudely cutting her off. Well, she couldn’t hear her, but it was still rude. “Just walk around going ‘here, ghostie, ghostie’?”

The guy made a few stammering noises, before pulling out a little plastic box. “I mean, kind of? This here’s an EMF reader…” He let forth a great deal of technobabble that neither Sophie or Parker understood or cared to understand. “Basically, this goes beep if there’s ghosts.”

And it did, as he walked around the house. But it also went beep at Parker’s power tools, her coffee machine, the old globe with the liquor in it, and a point in the wall where there used to be an electrical outlet. When Parker didn’t look convinced, the young man pulled out another device from his bag of tricks.

“We could try an EVP session,” he said, hopefully. “It’s when you record yourself asking questions, and listen back with the sound way up to see if anyone or anything answered.”

Parker nodded. “Okay!”

Hardison turned on the recorder. “Session one, Ford Manor. Hello, my name is Alec Hardison. If there is any entity who wants to communicate, please speak into this device. Can you tell me your name?”

“What do you mean, Ford Manor? It’s clearly Devereaux Manor, if anything,” Sophie said, annoyed.

“Are you the woman who was murdered in this house?” Hardison continued, showing no sign that he’d heard her. Parker was staring at the little device, eyes wide.

“Yes! And it was my house. My name is Sophie, by the way, darling.”

“Can you tell us who did it?”

“The wife! I already told you.”

“Is there anything you want to ask her?” Hardison graciously asked, turning to Parker. Like they didn’t chat every evening. She paused for a moment, thinking.

“I’m thinking either brass or black hardware for the bathroom, what do you think?” she asked, leaning forward to speak into the recording device.

“Oh, it depends on the design,” Sophie replied. “Black can look very chic but also cold, but brass can look tacky if-”

“That’s your question?” Hardison asked, interrupting her.

“It’s her bathroom too,” Parker shrugged. She didn’t mention that Sophie had very strong opinions on interior decorating. It seemed like she was testing Hardison out a little before letting him in on their secrets.

The guy chuckled and shut off the device, leading them back downstairs. “May I?” he gestured at the large table in the middle of the unfinished dining room currently full of blueprints and bathroom tile samples. Parker nodded, and he pulled out a small laptop and plugged in the device. He typed away and then suddenly, his voice filled the room at a loud volume, with a bit of static.

“Can you tell me your name?” the Hardison on the recording asked.

There was a lot of static-y silence, and then a garbled, whispered ‘ford’ could be heard. It didn’t even sound like her! Still, Hardison looked very excited. Even when nothing came through on the next question. He cranked the sound higher, and after a few seconds of silence on the question about who murdered her, a half bitten off ‘you’ could be heard.

“Did you murder my ghost, Hardison?” Parker asked, squinting at him.

“I- no! It’s not an exact science. But the fact that we even got any…”

“Shh!” Parker cut him off. “I wanna hear what they have to say about the bathroom!” But none of Sophie’s answer had gone through. She’d have to try and make her opinion clear some other way, then.

“Clearly, your little device is rubbish,” Sophie told Hardison.

“I can’t believe we got two points of contact!” the young man exclaimed. “This is amazing! Did you hear that, it sounded like they said ‘Ford’ when I asked for a name. Maybe Jeremiah Ford, the original builder of the home, he passed away in the house from old age.”

“I guess,” Parker said, clearly not agreeing. Hardison didn’t seem to notice, though.

“Can I check out the garden, too? There have been reports of people seeing a woman in a long black dress in the garden on foggy nights.” He nearly sprinted outside when Parker nodded to him.

“It’s blue!” Sophie said, gesturing down at her dress. She needed to keep an eye on that young man, he was going to ruin her reputation. She followed Hardison into the garden, leaving Parker watching from the porch. He was waving another gizmo around when he rounded a corner and ran smack-dab into Eliot. He let out a little shriek as he fell.

Eliot eyed the man for a moment before helping him up off the ground. “You that ghost hunter, then?” he asked. For some reason, his accent was thicker than it usually was. The last time she’d heard it that thick was when he was swearing because the roses had an infestation of lice.

“Y-yeah,” Hardison said.

“You better beware,” Eliot growled. “That’s dangerous business you’re getting yourself involved in. Mighty dangerous.”

“What?” Hardison stared at him with big eyes. “P-Parker said you’d been here longer than she was. Do you know anything? Have you seen anything?”

“Hmm,” Eliot hummed. “Seen a lot of things around these parts. Heard a lot of things too. That’s why I’m warning you, man. That house is dangerous.”

“Parker seems to think it’s fine,” Hardison replied, looking back at the house where Parker was still hanging out on the porch, playing with her phone.

“Oh sure. It don’t go after women, now do it...” The gardener looked him up and down. “Young men, however…”

“The records do say that the son who may have murdered Ms Devereaux suddenly vacated the property after just three months of living here,” Hardison said, flipping through a little notebook. He was starting to tremble a little. “Moved to the opposite coast and everything.”

“The house is dangerous,” Eliot repeated. “Especially after dark. Beware!” And then, almost as suddenly as he had popped up, he vanished behind some trees again. Intrigued, Sophie followed him, leaving a dumbfounded Hardison behind in the garden.

A little distance away, Eliot was bent over behind some bushes, silently laughing. She’d never known Eliot to have such a sense of humour. He was usually all business. Or at least, he pretended to be all business while secretly fawning over Parker. It was nice to see him like this. Even if it meant he scared the living daylights out of that poor ghost hunter. Oh well, it served him right for not having better equipment.

“You’re incorrigible,” she told him, fondly.

By the time she and Eliot made her way back to the house, Hardison had apparently spoken to Parker and left. She smiled at Eliot when she saw him, and he smiled back, softer than before.

Oh, young love.

“Were you scaring my ghost hunter?” she asked, as Eliot came up the steps, cleaning his hands on a rag and shoving it in his back pocket.

“Maybe,” he said, having the presence of mind to look a little guilty. After all, he had been Parker’s guest.

“It didn’t work. He asked to come back next week after dark to do more readings, maybe set up a camera in some empty rooms.” She grinned. “I already volunteered you to help carry the equipment.” She laughed at Eliot’s grumbling and ushered him inside, insisting he stay for dinner, and by dinner she meant pizza which she had already ordered so he couldn’t say no. Very good, Parker.

She left the two love-birds alone for a while, checking on all the work upstairs and considering what type of hardware would look nice in the upstairs bathroom. By the time she got back downstairs, the pizza had arrived and Parker and Eliot were huddled on the sofa together.

“I think he’s wrong,” Parker said, wedging her bare toes under Eliot’s thigh on the sofa. He ducked his hair down in front of his face as he grabbed another slice of pizza, but from where she was sitting, Sophie could see his delighted smile. “I don’t think Ghost is a man. She’s clearly a woman.”

“What makes you say that?” Eliot asked, suspicious. Maybe wondering if Parker had been in the garden on any foggy nights when the moon was full.

“Men don’t usually care that much about paint swatches,” Parker reasoned. Eliot shook his head, smiling. “She always responds to me,” Parker went on, sulking. “I don’t know why she won’t respond for Hardison.”

“Maybe your ghost is racist,” Eliot suggested jokingly.

“I am not!” Sophie gasped, shoving the man’s empty beer bottle off the coffee table. Eliot flinched, jumping up.

“Clumsy,” he muttered. “Must have put it down wrong. I’ll get the broom.”

“Or you should stop insulting my ghost!” Parker called after him.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts!” Eliot shouted back. Just for that, she made the lights in the entire house flicker, enjoying the way his shoulders stiffened.

“Don’t worry, Ghost,” Parker whispered. “I know you’re woke.” And while Sophie wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, she knew Parker had her back.

-

The next time Hardison came over, after dark, he brought more cameras and equipment. Eliot did help him carry everything in, like promised, and only made ominous expressions at the ghost hunter when Parker’s back was turned. Still, he gave the man a bowl of the homemade soup he’d brought over, so they could eat while the cameras upstairs were doing their thing.

Sophie did everything in her power to get caught on tape. She got up very close to it, she recited Macbeth, she sang, she bloody tap-danced in front of the thing. And what did she get for it when Hardison reviewed the footage? Some bloody orbs! At least he’d heard some thumps from her dancing, and had begged to come back next week.

Pretty soon it was a standing affair. Eliot would show up to cook dinner in the newly renovated kitchen (the subway tile _did_ freshen the place up, and Parker had listened to her opinions on faucet choices), Hardison would come over to set up some equipment or run some tests, and Sophie would try everything she could to be seen. Eliot had even switched gears from playing the Scary Gardner, now that he knew Hardison wasn’t so easily scared off, into playing the sceptic.

“All old houses have cold spots, that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Man, that’s just some dust on the lens.”

“How do you know a bug didn’t set that motion detector off?”

Parker just let the boys bicker, and grinned at whatever corner she had decided Sophie was probably in that night. It was sweet. Even with all her efforts upstairs and in the garden trying to get any of the blasted machines to work, she’d started to notice something was there. Hardison kept staying later and later, the three of them sitting closer on the couch than was strictly necessary.

She was beginning to wonder if she should try to communicate something to Parker about it. It was harder to talk to her, with Eliot coming over more evenings and even staying some nights (and those nights, Sophie made sure to spend in the garden). Maybe a message in the fogged up mirror in the morning? That would be pretty direct, and take much more effort than turning on a silly lamp, though.

Then one Friday evening, Hardison came to the house bouncing with excitement.

“This is it,” he said, placing something in the middle of the coffee table. “This is going to be my big breakthrough.”

“What is it?” Parker asked.

“Get it off the table, the pasta is done,” Eliot growled. Parker had admitted to Sophie she’d ordered a dining table for the breakfast nook that could easily sit three, but she’d hidden it down in the basement because she didn’t want to miss out on sitting on the couch on Friday night with her boys.

Her boys. She’d been saying that more often, switching from ‘the boys’ to ‘hers’. Sophie had also noticed the way she talked about the house was different. Less resale value and more about what she liked. She’d even re-measured the basement, scribbling ‘large enough for home gym?’ on her clipboard.

“Why are the noodles black?” Hardison asked.

“Cause Parker likes them that way, man, shut up and move over.” Eliot groused, throwing his apron on the chair where Sophie was sitting (“Rude!”) and making zero effort to actually sit in it himself. They spent dinner discussing the latest work on the house, Eliot’s funny new client who had an entire swarm of Pomeranians he had to work around, and Hardison’s latest Youtube video (“there’s no such thing as werewolves, dammit Hardison!”).

Then, after dinner but before the ice cream and movie the night inevitably ended up as, Hardison pulled out his latest little device again.

“This,” he said with a flourish, “is the spirit box.” There was no reaction from Parker or Eliot, but bless him, he didn’t let that stop him. “It’s a device that jumps through all the radio channels, each for a fraction of a second, making a sort of white noise. Ghosts can use that energy to communicate.” Still, the other two on the couch did not react. Sophie leaned in closer, though. She and Parker had wallpapers to discuss.

“Just get on with it, man, so we can get to the ice cream,” Eliot said. He made a big show of rolling his eyes when Hardison took out his little recorder and did his little spiel. Sophie noticed that he kept very quiet whenever Hardison was working, though. Deep down, he was a big softie.

From Hardison’s excited expression and his explanation, Sophie had had high hopes. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, hand hovering above the little device as Hardison turned it on. However, once he pressed the button, a fantastical burst of static sprung forth from it. Her hands flew back and over her ears, as the little device continued to make the most horrible, demonic stuttering noises.

On the sofa, Parker had mimicked her gesture, pressing her ears shut with her fingers and curling into a ball. She hated unexpected loud noises. Eliot just winced.

“Turn it off!” he growled.

“Yes!” Sophie agreed. The spirit box did not relay her message.

“Is anyone here with us tonight?” Hardison tried, hopeful. Sophie growled, leaning forward and whacking at the blasted thing.

“Turn this bloody noisemaker off!” she said. “You’re scaring Parker!”

“Blood,” the box said in between bursts of noise, and she screamed at it in frustration. It was just as useless as the rest of his little gizmos.

“Did you hear that?” Hardison said, excited. Parker had unfurled, but her ears were still firmly pressed shut.

“Hardison, I swear to god if you don’t turn that thing off I will break it,” Eliot threatened. Pouting, the ghost hunter did. Parker waited for a few seconds more before carefully uncovering her ears. Eliot knocked their shoulders together gently, and she squeezed his knee.

“No more spirit box,” Eliot glowered, pointing a threatening finger at Hardison, before getting up to clean away the dishes.

“No more spirit box when Eliot is around,” Parker amended. And probably her too, but she was too nice to say. Or she could wear those darling gold-painted noise cancelling earmuffs she had, Sophie figured. Those worked perfectly. Sophie had to flicker the lights just to inform Parker there was someone at the door when she wore those. “Or you can do it in the basement, or something.”

“But he’s always around,” Hardison complained. He looked slightly nervous about being in the basement alone. Which was silly, Sophie didn’t even like the basement. Too damp and dreary. Besides, most of her treasures had been stored in the attic.

“Well, duh,” Parker said. “He has a crush on you.”

Hardison startled, all thoughts of going down into the basement alone forgotten. “Parker, he has a crush on _you_ ,” he said.

“Of course he does, silly,” Parker beamed. “We’re dating. But he also has a crush on you.” Without waiting for a response, she sprang up. “I’m gonna get the ice cream out of the freezer so it’ll be soft enough to eat once the movie is set up.”

Oh dear. She really needed to figure out a way to talk to Parker. And possibly Eliot. Who just came back from the kitchen with three drinks and flopped down on the sofa next to Hardison, so close their legs were touching. Hardison, for his part, looked at Eliot like he’d never seen him before. He may have been blushing.

Well, now.

“If you hurt a hair on that girl’s head,” Sophie whispered into both their ears. “I will make you regret it.”

“Woah, man, did you just get a shiver down your spine?”

“What? No!” Eliot denied. Sophie raised an eyebrow at him, clearly noting the goose bumps and raised hairs on his arm. “Stop being weird and set up the movie.”

-

Trying to communicate with Parker was a lot harder when she was trying. It was easy when she wasn’t thinking about it, or if she was angry (we are _not_ painting the entire bedroom that shade of purple, Parker). So far, all her attempts at writing in the condensation on the mirror had been met with Parker making a note on her clipboard to check the ventilation, and one very uncomfortable moment for Sophie when she hadn’t realised Eliot was in there with her. (On the other hand, well done Parker. She may be dead, but she wasn’t blind, you know?)

Hardison still came over every Friday. He even got to attempt another session with the spirit box, but only after Parker had promised to stay at the top of the stairs of the basement so Eliot wouldn’t lock the door as a prank. Sophie tried everything she could to make he blasted thing work, up to and including standing on the bloody thing. Sadly all she managed was to make it stop jumping channels for a few seconds when she heard a song she liked, which in turn spooked poor Hardison so much he sprinted back upstairs.

Eliot had to go and retrieve the spirit box. He glared and turned it off, looking around the basement and muttering ‘there’s no such thing as ghosts’ under his breath before moving back upstairs.

“There is, and they hate the spirit box just as much as you do,” she told his retreating back glumly.

Luckily, the whole situation between the three kids worked itself out before she had to intervene. By the time she got upstairs, the two boys were bickering about something, and Parker standing in the doorway bemused and bewildered. She had the bowl of popcorn Eliot made pressed against her chest, the other hand grabbing fistfulls to eat.

“Is it that bloody spirit box again?” she asked the girl. Parker just cocked her head at the argument.

“No man, I just mean, I literally and figuratively don’t want to get between you two,” Hardison was saying.

“What are you… just sit down, man!” Eliot replied.

“No, I mean, you’re both very hot and very talented and that is right up my alley,” Hardison continued, ignoring the disgruntled sound the other man made, “but y’all have a good thing going on and I don’t want to interfere, even if you do have a crush on me.”

For a moment, the room went very still, except for the sound of Parker still eating hands full of popcorn. Sophie pressed a hand to her mouth, trembling in suspense. It was probably a good thing Parker had finally donated that chandelier, she wouldn’t have wanted to ruin the moment.

“Dammit, Parker!” Eliot let out, turning to the girl. Sophie instinctively took a step forward. “Did you forget to mention you also wanted to date him? That we both do?”

Parker paused, hand full of popcorn halfway to her mouth. “That wasn’t obvious?” she asked. Oh, Parker. “But I let him talk to my ghost every week! And we eat together! And watch movies and snuggle on the couch!”

“You… you both want to date me?” Hardison asked. “For real?”

Sophie laughed. Oh, young love. “I’m going to give you kids some privacy,” she said, making her way to the garden. It was a wet, foggy night, and the moon was nearly full. Too bad Hardison was going to be much too busy inside to spot anything that may or may not appear in the garden, she thought with a smirk. Oh well, there was always next Friday. She figured he’d be sticking around for a while.

-

Six months later, the house was as good as done. The basement had been finished and turned into a home gym, a boxing bag Parker didn’t look like she ever planned to use hanging in the corner. The built-ins in the library had been repainted again into a colour that just so happened to fit the mood of a certain paranormal Youtuber’s channel (Sophie may have vetoed some colour choices). And instead of a For Sale sign springing up in the front garden, Parker planted a large fir tree. Eliot grumbled for a while of course, claiming he was the gardener around here. But one mention from Parker always wanting ‘a real Christmas tree in front of her house’ and he had relented, all soft eyes and smitten smiles.

A month after that, Eliot and Hardison officially moved in. Parker had had some discussions with Sophie about it, of course. She’d lit up every light in the house when Parker had told her, she was so proud. And she’d even promised not to knock any of the boy’s possessions over, even if they didn’t fit with the aesthetic of the house. Which had been a hard promise, when she’d seen what was in some of the boxes Hardison had been carrying.

The spirit box was an exception, though. _Somehow_ it had toppled from the box, all the way down the flight of stairs. Sophie’s satisfaction at the thing smashing to the ground at the bottom of the staircase only increased when Eliot, looking around furtively, kicked the thing down the hall. She may have opened the basement door so it could clatter down another flight of stairs.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Eliot told himself, staring at the open door. “Old houses are just like that sometimes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](https://innytoes.tumblr.com/) to shout about Leverage AUs and how annoying the spirit box is.


End file.
